INSTALLATION!

Over the summer, we arranged to have all the parts we needed manufactured by AMI in Manhattan.  When we came back to school in August, we gathered all the parts and tools we needed and did a trial build of our Reconfigurable Habitat.

Aaron, Chris, Amy and Adam bolting together wall sections.

Aaron showing off.  We can't take him anywhere.

Full horizontal configuration in the Foundation Building parking lot on campus.

A small diameter for the vertical configuration.

We discovered a couple problems during the build that were easy to solve but would have nonetheless caused panic if we hadn’t discovered them until we installed in the Johnson Space Center.  One of the problems we found, for example, was related to our method of connecting the aluminum tubing.  We had intended on using internal connectors for both the horizontal and vertical configurations until we did our trial run in August.

An internal connector lines up with the end hole of a piece of aluminum tubing and connect a second piece of tubing with the longer, extruding bolt.

As seen above, the internal connectors need two bolts in order to connect the two pieces of aluminum tubing.  In the vertical configuration, the bolt heads on the sides of the tubing ran into each other when attached to the piano hinges.  This meant that the hinges couldn't open as widely as they needed to.  In order to adjust for this, we ordered some more of the plate connectors.  Even though the plate connectors also require two bolts, the bolt heads are on a different side of the aluminum tubing, and do not interfere with the piano hinges’ motion anymore.

A plate connector connects aluminum tubing by lining up with the end holes on two pieces of tubing that are lined up perpendicularly.

From this top view, one can see that the wall section on the right is connected with an internal connector.  The longer bolt of this connector has its bolt head pointing into the other wall section.  If both wall sections are made this way, the bolt heads would run into each other and interfere with the hinges' ranges of motion. The wall section on the left is connected with a plate connector instead.

This is just one example of a small problem we found during our trial run.  We learned during this experience how important a trial run, or prototype for example, is to the design process.  We thought we had designed for every little detail, but commonly enough unforeseen problems exist.

We also worked on several important documents for the installation trip to Houston, one of which was the installation guide.  This was a 30 page document that covered, step by painstaking step, our recommended process for building the Reconfigurable Habitat in both configurations, including pictures.  The processes described in this guide also needed to comply with NASA safety regulations. Incidentally, we found during our own trial run that this structure can be built a number of ways.  Although our installation guide covered one way to build the Reconfigurable Habitat, it is by no means the only way.  Other documents we needed were a Hazard Analysis, as per NASA safety requirements, and a final presentation called a Test Readiness Review, or a TRR. The TRR was meant just to update the safety supervisors at JSC of the project and all the precautions needed for the “risks” to be nullified.

Our trip to Houston began bright and early on September 10^th, and was an exciting one, to say the least.   Barely outside of Manhattan, we hit a large bump and our trailer came unhitched!  Sparks were flying as we tried to slow down without slamming the trailer into the back of our nice motorpool suburban.  After we pulled over, we thought the jack on the trailer was broken and at that time noticed that neither the trailer not the suburban had an extra tire jack at all. Half of us made a run to get another lock for the trailer hitch while the other half of us figured out how to get the broken lock off and the jack working again.  We finally got re-hitched and locked and were back on the road, sure our bad luck had run out. 

Instead, somewhere between OKC and Dallas, we blew out a tire on the trailer! And, of course, as we knew, we had no tire jack.  We had to call Highway Patrol to borrow the nice Patrolman’s tire jack and then drive 30 mph down the Interstate in order to get to a gas station because the spare tire needed air that badly.  The trip overall took us 15-16 hours, instead of the expected 12. We arrived safely and in good spirits about 11 pm.

Monday morning, trailer in tow, we met Mary and Christie at JSC.  We spent the whole day building first the horizontal and then the 15-foot vertical configuration.

Aaron, Chris, Adam, Rachel, and Dr. Lease building the horizontal configuration at JSC.

Tuesday we gave our TRR and presented all of our other documentation to NASA.  This included both the installation guide and HA, but it also meant all our Solidworks-turned-ProE files, the CDR, the PDR, a cost analysis, and our recommended for purchase items.  We also turned over all the tools we used for building, including 850 nuts and bolts (all the same diameter and color coded according to length), wrenches, tape measures, all the PVC sheeting for aesthetic covering, cleaners, gloves, etc.  The extra items we bought were pretty extensive.

We gave our TRR presentation to a NASA safety manager in addition to Christie (not pictured) and Mary.

Just one of our many piles of tools and structure parts we left in JSC for the Flight Deck of the Future department.

We also mounted a couple monitors into our structure using universal TV mounts (supplied by NASA) that interfaced with our design and covered the rest of the open walls with our PVC sheeting and Velcro.

The team with our partial covered vertical configuration, one monitor mounted!

Overall the trip went really well.  Our installed structure looked great, and we could not have been more proud of ourselves.  The trip back to Kansas went much more smoothly than the way down, and we are ready for some time to relax.  We have one final design presentation to give to some professors here at K-State in November, and we are still waiting to hear further feedback from Mary and Christie about how our Reconfigurable Habitat has fared since we left!

The team with our fully built horizontal configuration,
before we took it apart to built the vertical.

The finished look. This is our vertical configuration with two monitors mounted, all the open wall space covered with PVC sheeting, and a technology station to boot!

CDR

On March 30^th some of our team got the privilege of meeting with Jim Jaax.  He is a former NASA engineer, K-State alumni, and a 2012 College of Engineering Hall of Fame recipient. Since he was on campus for the occasion, we had a chance to meet with him. He actually worked some of his career at JSC (where we are installing our reconfigurable habitat) and knew exactly of all the buildings we discussed.

He worked on the X-38 for NASA, which was a prototype of a wingless crew return vehicle from the ISS.  The vehicle got as far as parachute guided drop tests until budget cuts caused the project to be stopped.  What really struck home with us was how highly Mr. Jaax spoke of the Senior Design program we are currently going through.  He thought his X-38 project was comparable to our reconfigurable habitat project because of the group dynamics. The class depends so heavily on team work, and he really felt that was applicable to his work, and to our future careers.  Mr. Jaax was friendly and insightful, and we certainly benefited from talking with him.

Dr. Lease, Aaron, Mr. Jaax, Chris, and Adam.

As far as the project goes, we presented our Critical Design Review (CDR) on May 4^th.  The CDR follows a comparable format to the PDR, but the similarities end there.  The CDR is a final presentation, and is supposed to be the last review of the project ideas.  This was a chance for NASA to give us either a final yes or no for building and construction. Meaning, of course, that the design had to be fully detailed and explained.  On May 4^th we presented to Christie, who traveled to K-State’s campus for the occasion, and to other various contacts via conference call.

Let’s start with out design changes. 

 As seen above, our wall section assemblies have retained similar design traits.  We’ve decided to supply an “H” shape of internal mounting, instead of 3 panels. The wall also lost its depth and the poles/collars of the previous design. The cylindrical shape of the Flight Deck as a whole will be created by attaching these wall sections to each other at various angles. In the vertical configuration, this will be done using continuous hinges, as seen below.

In this way, the angle between the wall sections, and therefore the overall diameter of the cylinder, can be changed easily. The angles are locked using locking bars, back supports, and cross bracing. Both the minimum and maximum vertical assemblies are also shown below, in addition to a conceptual image.

 In the horizontal configuration, the wall sections will be attached to each other using brackets.

Since the horizontal configuration only needs to be one size, the brackets work to keep the only necessary angle locked. In addition, the locking bars and back supports are still used for additional structure.   The horizontal configuration is shown below, in addition to a conceptual image.

In the CDR we also researched and analyzed factors of safety for a number of different scenarios that were extremes in loading based on our requirements.  All these factors of safety were above the necessary 3 for yield and 4 for ultimate.  We also researched the purchasing and manufacturing of materials from a variety of vendors, and after making our choices found we were (barely) under budget.

 

The senior design team with Christie outside of Rathbone Hall.

The results: NASA gave us the go ahead to build!  We have purchased all of our materials and our manufacturer should be finished in the next couple of weeks.  We are building a trial run of our reconfigurable habitat when school starts this fall, and going down to Houston in September for installation.  In the meantime, we are working on an installation guide, and amassing any other documentation we need for materials and assembly.  All to come next post! 

PDR

The trip to Houston was (mostly) a success!  It began with the 12 hour drive from Manhattan, KS to our hotel near the Johnson Space Center.   The fifteen passenger van actually made decent time, but our advisor, Dr. Lease, flew and beat us there.  He had the rooms all ready for us though, so after running through the presentation and hammering out some last minute details, we decided sleep would prepare us more for the day ahead.

Our presentation to NASA’s Flight Deck of the Future department was first thing in the morning.  We had imagined we would be showing our designs to Mary and Christie, our main NASA contacts, but to our surprise we had many more people in attendance, including some dialed in on a conference call.  Several different departments of NASA have stock in this program, and while the collaboration between different groups is informative and thorough, it definitely added to our nerves.

The presentation went fairly well.  We all spoke our different parts, and answered any questions the best we could.  We have taken home with us several notes of things to change and adjustments needed in our ideas, the redesigns of which we will post in here when they are more finalized, but generally the design review was a positive experience. 

From the left: Amy, Rachel, Chris, Adam, and Aaron

After the presentation and lunch, we went on our private tours of a few of the JSC facilities.  We started by touring a building that had the Mission Control Center used by the Apollo missions and the current MCCs used for both current (potential) launches and the International Space Center.

To the right we are sitting around the Flight Director's desk in the Apollo MCC.  From the left, Christie, Chris, Aaron, Adam, Dr. Lease, Tiffany (NASA intern), Rachel, Mary, and Amy. 

We then went over to see some of the retired shuttles and crawled around in several of the mockups (Orion too!)

To the left is Chris sitting in a shuttle cockpit! 

Next we saw the Habitat Demonstration Unit used in the Desert R.A.T.S (Research and Technologies Studies) experiments. Finally, we ended by viewing a rocket built to fly, but never actually went up.

When the tours were over, we met with Christie and her family for dinner at the Kemah boardwalk, The Flying Dutchmen restaurant.  The food was delicious, the weather was perfect, and the boardwalk was beautiful.

To the left Dr. Lease is shutting Rachel in a hurricane simulator, one of the many activities to participate in along the Kemah boardwalk.

All in all, we adored our trip to Houston, and we are working hard to redesign our reconfigurable habitat to suit all the suggestions and idea changes we received at the presentation.   New designs will be posted shortly! 

Early Designs

We are going to Houston (though hopefully we won’t encounter any problems) for our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) with NASA’s Flight Deck of the Future this weekend!  Sunday morning, bright and early, we are beginning the 12-14 hour drive south.  Monday at 10 AM we will present our designs and ideas, following with tours of the JSC facilities after lunch. Tuesday we make the return journey.

Although the PDR is only the first design review we are doing for NASA, it requires an enormous amount of detail in order to be thorough.  We plan on discussing our problem statement, motivation, goals, outreach, education, project requirements, timeline and Gantt Chart, naming conventions, CAD drawings we have been able to develop, finite element analysis (FEA) we have been able to run on these CAD drawings, and materials and costs overview. 

The first challenging bit of the PDR is the timeline and Gantt Chart, as this requires some rather in depth thought of future events.  For many people, it is instinct to jump into problems head first, without spending time planning for the entirety of the project.   While a quick lesson we have learned in this Senior Design class is that no project goes according to plan, importance can still be placed in the time spent creating the initial schedules.

Above is our Gantt Chart for the development of our design, with progress bars showing up to June.  Since we will not be installing anything inside of JSC until the end of August (tentatively), the bars above do not convey the entire project.  This spring semester is depicted though.

The most challenging part of this PDR on Monday is easily the amount of design we wanted to have prepared for the meeting.  We have plans on showing CAD drawings and preliminary FEA for the horizontal and vertical configurations, the internal panel structure, and some of our support structures. 

Below we have outlined some of our basic ideas for the vertical configuration.

The above picture illustrates one complete wall section supported by two poles.  The cylindrical shape of the Flight Deck as a whole will be comprised of this alternating wall section/pole pattern.  The locking mechanisms attached to the poles (collars) can rotate around the poles on bearings, allowing us to be able to change the angle of the wall sections in relation to each other, and therefore the diameter of overall cylindrical shape.

The previously displayed wall sections are made up of three subsections, named panels, which are shown above.  These panels are made of bars with bolt hole mounting capabilities. We have certain amount of versatility in being able to change the configuration of the internal bars to idealize space.  We also plan on covering these panels with plastic fronts when they are not being directly used for mounting purposes. 

This third image depicts what the horizontal configuration will look like as a whole.  The wall sections on the poles discussed before have here been connected to show how the structure will form its desired cylindrical shape.  Also as mentioned before, the individual panels (subsections of the wall sections) will have plastic fronts to enclose the holes on the panels not being used and give the structure a more finished, uniform surface.

Secondly, we have outlined some of our basic ideas for the horizontal configuration.

The wall sections we are using in the horizontal configuration are very similar to the wall sections used in the vertical.  The difference is in how the wall sections connect to each other.  Since only one diameter is required for the horizontal orientation, we can use brackets, as shown above, to connect the wall sections to one another.  

Above is the design for the horizontal configuration as a whole.  In addition to the brackets connecting the wall sections to each other, we will have four arches supporting the cylindrical shape. 

With these designs and the rest of our presentation in tow, we are very excited to have the opportunity to go to Houston this weekend!  Presenting all the ideas we have spent so much time and hard work developing is slightly nerve-wrecking, but we can’t imagine a more exciting way to get NASA’s opinion on our designs (tour of JSC facilities included!)  We have less than a week to brush up on our presentation, and then off to Houston we go.  Wish us luck!  

The Flight Deck of the Future

Welcome!  We are seniors studying Mechanical Engineering at Kansas State University.  The purpose of this blog is to document our process of designing a partial, reconfigurable habitat for NASA which is based on their ideals of the Flight Deck of the Future.

First, as with any good first impression, allow us to introduce ourselves.  Five of us are collaborating on this team, assigned to the NASA project for our Senior Design class.  

From left to right:  Aaron, Amy, Chris, Adam, Rachel.  Below are some more pictures of our brainstorming process.  

Next, an explanation of the project is in due order.  The Flight Deck of the Future is NASA’s vision of the “next generation of manned spacecraft.”  It is to be a fusion of human interface and advancing technologies, referred to as Human- Systems Integration (HSI) methodology.  We are designing, building, and delivering a habitat to Johnson Space Center in Houston which will allow for the testing of new concepts and technologies.

The overall view of this habitat is one of a familiar cylindrical shape, but NASA would like for the frame to be able to change diameter (10 to 17 feet in range).  In addition, the frame should be able to be mounted in both a horizontal and vertical configuration.  Luckily for us, the cylinder can be approximated with flat sections, or panels, up to 2.5 feet in length.  The specifications particular to the internal structure of the habitat include:

·         three fold down control stations

·         one fold down table

·         three windows

·         easy, accessible mounting for loose hardware

·         two racks for electronics

·         one crew exam table for telemedicine

·         charging station for electronics (cable management)

·         three shelves

 All of this requirements should be movable, in order to reconfigure the habitat as need (or desire) be.  The last major item to be addressed is the main structure itself.  The frame of the cylindrical habitat should be able to withstand a 200 lb bump, have a factor of safety of 3 for yield and of 4 for ultimate.

We will continue with updates on how we are tackling this exciting, albeit challenging, project.  So, as they say, to the drawing board!